


Unmasking

by spacemagic



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: ATLA Femslash Week, ATLA Femslash Week 2020, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Trans Female Character, Trans Suki (Avatar), brief mention of trans Kyoshi too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25850338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemagic/pseuds/spacemagic
Summary: In the quiet years after the war, Suki paints her face alone. When the weight of the day has passed, she lets Ty Lee wash it away ('remove' is too harsh a word, for a process so gentle), and bares her face. It's a still moment, on an island known for its bracing winds.Seven scenes with Suki and Ty Lee on Kyoshi Island for ATLA Femslash Week 2020. Prompt: Kyoshi Island.
Relationships: Suki/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 87





	Unmasking

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate summary: gays (thanks to my friend Nova <333).
> 
> there's the briefest mention of Azula but it's not enough to tag. Enjoy 3k of jock girlfriends.

Suki liked to paint her face alone. Some said there was a closeness in brushing the lips of another with bright pigments, to touch another’s cheek with cold paint that tickles, but she preferred to put on her own mask. She would draw the shapes with her own fingers in a mirror, with her hair held back by a pin, and take the moment in solitude, and stillness.

It was her own little ritual. Sacred, in more ways than one.

Sometimes Ty Lee would watch, though. All that gentle, easy chatter that she strung together to fill up the space between them would still, for a moment. She would observe Suki paint her face with a solemn expression, on a little straw mat in front of an arrangement of scented candles that she had a bit of a weakness for. (Suki really liked the lavender ones that Ty Lee would make for her, not that she would tell anyone.)

The moment she snuffed out those candles, and open the shutters, and left the room, Ty Lee would spring up again like a breeze, spin around her while she talked about whatever caught her attention. That day, it was names. She wondered why Chiyo, the island’s brisk-mannered courier who ran up and down the messenger tower, gave her shrew-bats and tiger-hawks names that rhymed, and Suki had shrugged, commented perhaps he was making a poem out of it. How, Ty Lee asked, would you do that? And Suki supposed that she’d map out where they’d be and string their names together to make something pretty out of a pattern that otherwise had no meaning. Chiyo had never left the island, after all.

‘You’re kinda profound, you know,’ she said, with a wide smile. ‘Has anyone told you that yet?’

‘Nah, not yet.’

Ty Lee grinned at that. She loved being first. Suki softly elbowed her back, as if to say, _don’t show off, I’ll beat you next time,_ at what game, neither of them really knew, she just knew she’d beat her.On her face spread a smile as wide as the tides.

* * *

At first, Suki had found it difficult to return the smiles of a whirlwind of a girl who’d handspring around her home telling stories about circus animals. Suki hadn’t really understood what she was doing at all – a pretty little rich girl, running from the comforts of her home, travelling half-way around the world to an island where all was still, except the bracing winds, did not make much sense to her.

‘Are you sure you won’t be bored?’

Ty Lee had just looked confused. ‘Why would I be bored?’ she had asked, with a slight frown, and there was this weird twisty-tangled feeling Suki had in her gut for even causing her to frown, that she strongly disliked.

It’s not as if Suki couldn’t forgive. And she was beginning to forgive.But these things took time. These things took weight. She was earth, in that aspect. Ty Lee worked as hard as any other, threw herself into the training, and gave the other girls the push they needed, and Suki appreciated that, Suki knew she put in the effort. She had been willing to extend a hand: it would take time, however, to untangle things fully. To see if she would grasp it.

So Suki had watched Ty Lee carefully. Suki had watched Ty Lee with her arms looped through another girl’s, her hands clutching another girl’s as she stood on her toes, watched her brush shoulders against another girl, bubble up with laughter as she pirouetted around another girl, and laugh and laugh and laugh. Suki had watched, and she understood and she didn’t and that made her stomach slip up in knots again.

‘You know you can be yourself here,’ she had tried to supply, helpfully, a leader to her warrior.

‘I know! It’s great,’ said Ty Lee, with the biggest grin. And she had spun off, because she needed to help the other girls with their forms this morning, before Suki could even get into the little speech about _not needing to pretend_ she had spent twenty minutes planning in her head that morning.

Suki knew what was and wasn’t a pretence. She dusted her brow with thick paint every morning. She could draw lines between masks and mirrors, uniforms and disguises. She knew them better than most: like Kyoshi, she hadn’t always been called a girl. Ty Lee lied like she was telling the truth but Suki had watched her enough to notice the slightest hesitation, or the way she clutched her hands behind her back, or the little shrug that she sometimes did, when she said something closer to fiction than fact.

It bothered her. It bothered her, because Ty Lee was good at this. It bothered her, because the smiles and touches and gentle nudges that were returned to her, were all genuine. From the heart.

People liked Ty Lee. Why wouldn’t they? She was free-spirited and fun and full of all sorts of stories, but she would listen too. She remembered everyone’s names. She’d given them something of hers, eagerly.

Suki decided, perhaps, she should give something too. She sneaked in next to her at the dinner table where each one of them had brought something: steamed veggies and white, fluffy rice and salty clams and hot, tangy soups that had a taste of something sweet in them.

‘Want some?’ she asked, offering her bowl. Ty Lee’s eyes went as wide as the moon, and she grabbed a big old mouthful and swallowed it up quickly. Suki let herself smile, just a bit. Steamed crab was always a winner.

‘Good?’

‘Delicious!’

‘I’m glad. Noa helped me. She’s a really great cook.’

Ty Lee nodded very emphatically, chopsticks already diving in for another mouthful. Suki knew this was the moment where she was supposed to say something leader-like and supportive, gently nudging her through a question, a ‘ _how do you think you’re doing so far?’_ Or instead, offering a constructive compliment, about how much the girls appreciate her work, they really do, that she needn’t have done all of this, all of that bluster, but it… just felt a little stale, actually, and not quite the right time, and now she was getting her head in knots again even thinking about this, would this even help? She wanted Ty Lee to feel welcome here, to make herself feel like she could make this her home, but she didn’t want to force something that wasn’t there—

‘You doing alright, Suki?’

‘I – um, yeah. Fine. I’m doing fine.’

‘Good! Happy for you.’

Suki looked at her curiously.

‘You know, that you’re fine,’ Ty Lee added with a laugnh. ‘Do you need anything?’

‘I’m… good, I think?’

‘Okay then!’

She moved to bounce away from the table, to speak to Yuka or Ren or Hana or just to someone a little more articulate most probably, before Suki tapped her gently on the shoulder.

‘Wait,’ said Suki. ‘Um, I think we should hang out more.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. We don’t really… talk.’

‘We’re talking… now?’

‘Yeah, but… listen, after training tomorrow, I usually go for a quick walk to clear my head. Do you want to come with? Talking is, um, optional.’

Ty Lee practically beamed at her. ‘Of course.’

It wasn’t really a ‘quick walk’. It was more of a hike, up across the hills where the hum of work and hiss of the tides and the clatter of rebuilding is lost instead to the sounds of birds, twigs cracking on a forest floor, red-gold leaves rustling. They didn’t talk much, not at first.

‘I love it here,’ Suki found herself saying. ‘It’s like it’s easier to breathe, up here.’

Ty Lee hummed, but wasn’t saying much. Suki found herself checking over her shoulder, careful glances, perhaps to see if she was still there, maybe, she wasn’t sure exactly, but she was always following her footsteps through the fallen leaves.

They didn’t touch at all. Not yet.

At a clearing, up on a hill, where things almost felt still except the bracing wind, they sat.

Ty Lee spoke first.

‘Do you miss home?’

Suki blinked. ‘You know I’m not from here?’

‘Yeah, one of the girls let it slip.’ She winced. ‘Was that supposed to be a secret?’

‘Nah. Not really.’ She lay back on the grass, hands behind her head, and thought of wide roads, worn clothes, and the smell of sulphur. She thought of how she’d forgotten what her mother might call her. The bitterness, in how she’d say it. She thought instead of the long, winding trail down the mountain, towards the sea. A four day hike. ‘I don’t. Miss it, that is. Home is here, now.’

Ty Lee nodded slowly, taking in all this information.

‘I almost kinda… envy you.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Mhm-hm. It’s like… I really like it here. I really do. I want to stay.’ She leans forward, a chin leaning on her hand, a rather strained expression on her face. ‘And… I don’t like where I’m from. I don’t want to miss it. All I ever dreamed about was running away.’

‘But you miss it, sometimes?’

‘Yeah. Sometimes.’

Suki sat up, and leaned forward. ‘It’s all you’ve known. It happens… it happened to me. It’ll pass, in time. All things do.’

There was a moment where the wind stopped. Quiet, and still.

‘I just want to belong,’ said Ty Lee, quietly.

Suki reached out with a hand, and gently brushed the top of her arm. Ty Lee glanced in her direction, wide-eyed.

It was a bit much. Looking. It was a bit much.

Suki felt a quick breath slip out of her, as Ty Lee held her gaze steady, and very softly placed her fingertips on Suki’s, keeping them in place on her arm.

‘You’ll belong. I’m sure.’

Ty Lee gave her a smile. It spread from her lips to her cheeks to her eyes slow, this time, and earnest.

Suki found a smile of her own quietly spread across her face. People were right, about her smiles: they were meant to be shared. They walked back down with a little quiet chatter about what the birds could be saying, whether it’d be anything philosophical or insightful or whether it’d just be little meaningless things, about the colour of the twigs in their nest. Suki was quite put out at the idea of that being meaningless – ‘I just think that colour co-ordination has its place, you know? It makes a home feel _homey._ It’s just a place, otherwise, for birds _or_ people’ – and Ty Lee laughed like someone might imagine a waterfall cascades, a gentle stream of falling laughter.

* * *

Masking was ceremony. It was a moment that she held to herself, before she became more than herself. It was about becoming who she wanted to be: aspirations, dreams, ideals. To paint her face meant to serve, to belong, to be strong, and a woman too. To be part of something greater.

Unmasking wasn’t something she’d thought of beyond just slapping some water and a towel on her face, before Ty Lee had leant against the doorway, hands curling around each other like there was something else she had to say. She told her that there was a bowl of warm water and soap ready. It smelt faintly of lavender.

‘We could share, if you’d like?’

‘Sure. No point wasting it.’

Ty Lee nodded, with a quick smile escaping her like a blush. They set up in parallel to each other, side by side. They’d take their own cloth, and brush away what they’d worn all day, what they wanted to be, and for others to see and know, and were left with themselves. Something that she was beginning to feel comfortable in.

‘You know you’ve missed a spot, right?’

‘Huh?’

‘Yeah,’ Suki said, with a warm smile. And she poked her on the nose.

Ty Lee would look at Suki with a look of utter surprise. ‘Oh. Um,’ she said. ‘Suki?’

‘Booped your nose.’

‘You… _booped_ my nose.’

‘Please don’t tell me no one has booped you on the nose before. You have a very boop-able nose.’

Ty Lee tilted her head to the side. Then, her hand approached her face, and almost ghosted around the edge of her features, before she softly pressed Suki on the tip of her nose.

‘Boop,’ said Ty Lee, quietly, with a little smile.

Suki couldn’t help it. She began to double over laughing.

It became a routine. Something comfortable, something regular. She would let herself take in quick glances at the girl next to her. Sometimes, their fingers would almost touch in the water – sometimes, Suki would even splash her, just a little, when it felt too dangerous. Ty Lee liked to splash back. Ty Lee had even been known to tip out the whole bowl of water – ‘ _it only happened once!’_ , she had claimed, with a little pout that Suki couldn’t help but cackle at.

‘You’d be the _worst_ waterbender,’ said Suki, with a grin. ‘Just diabolical.’

Ty Lee just stuck her tongue out at that.

It was intimate, in a way. To see a little more of herself than she’d let others normally touch. To watch each other laugh, knowing no one was watching them.

* * *

The next time, they would run. They’d race up that hill as the sun lay on the belly of the horizon, crossing streams and jumping over gnarled old tree roots and clambering up the rocks, past the hillside shrine covered in fresh flowers. Suki won, by the skin on her knees, because Ty Lee had almost tackled her to the ground – not that Suki would let her win that easily, of course. Suki knew how to dodge.

They’d talk about names again, and they’d trace constellations with their fingertips while laid back in the grass, with only themselves and a cool breeze for company. The names from the Fire Nation that Ty Lee pronounced sounded stiff and strange on her tongue, almost too formal, like a stuffy, tight-lipped man who preferred his scrolls to anything the sun could show him, had named them. She’d given Ty Lee an impression: that had made her laugh, and it struck Suki how that sound had become comforting, the boldness of her laughter, bright and willing to be heard.

‘What about here, on Kyoshi Island?’

And Suki told her. Suki told her about The Star-eyed Sailor who’d steer her ship a steady north even as the sea-serpents chased her tail, or The Iron Archer to the east, who’d knock her arrows towards the truth, or The Seamstress in the west, who stitched soldiers back together in exchange for spirit-blessed string.

‘They’re all girls, huh?’

‘Well, I don’t think the spirits go big on gender. There’s a few boys, but they’re rarely as fun in my experience.’

Ty Lee had turned towards her, to catch her eyes.

‘What about the lovers?’

‘Lovers?’

‘There’s always a constellation about lovers.’ Ty Lee poked a string of stars above the Sailor’s north star. ‘Up here. It’s some story about a lord taming a wild dragon, in the Fire Nation.’ She frowned a little. ‘Never particularly liked it, though.’

‘Oh, that’s the Fishwife! That’s Ren’s favourite.’

‘The Fishwife?’

‘Yeah! She fell in love with… I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, actually, some creature of the sea. Maybe a jellyfish-otter.’

‘Jellyfish-otter,’ said Ty Lee, with a smile. ‘I’ve never seen one of those.’

‘They’re really pretty. Floaty. Colourful.’

‘Mhm. Sounds nice.’

‘Yeah,’ said Suki, giggling.

Ty Lee leaned closer. ‘Do you remember the story?’

‘Um, I think so?’ Suki paused, to think. ‘I think it’s a sad one, you know. It’s… well, they fall in love. Or maybe just The Fishwife does, and it’s one-sided? Anyway. She promises to keep them safe and sound. Except… I don’t know, it ends with them leaving, maybe the sea creature thingy wanted to be free? And… at some point, there’s a flute involved? I think. There’s a lullaby, and a flute, and a sea-serpent goes to sleep. And the sea creature she loved gets to swim free at last.’

Ty Lee listened to this quietly, nodding along.

‘That’s a sad ending,’ she said, at last.

‘Yeah. But you shouldn’t hold on to something that can’t last.’

There’s a moment of quiet.

‘I want to stay here tonight,’ said Ty Lee.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. It’s beautiful here.’

Ty Lee was looking at her. Ty Lee was looking _at her._

Suki would be a rotten liar if she said the thought of kissing her here, in the grass, under the breeze, with muddy knees and dew tickling her neck hadn’t run through her head. More than once.

‘You’ll get cold,’ Suki said, suddenly.

‘No I won’t.’

‘There’s no fire here. It’s early spring. We’ll freeze by morning.’

‘I don’t mind! Really! It’ll be fine.’

Suki didn’t know what to say to this. So, she stood up.

Ty Lee sits up with a start. ‘Oh, um, sorry– I didn’t mean–um—’

‘Hey, hey, don’t – don’t say sorry – I just mean I don’t want to get cold, not…’ She trailed off, trying, and failing, to not look too awkward.

She knelt down, and placed a hand softly on her arm. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I’ll bring a blanket next time. Promise.’

‘Promise?’

‘Of course,’ said Suki, nudging her shoulder now. ‘Hey. Come on. Don’t make me _carry you_.’

The next thing Suki knew, she was carrying her home. Ty Lee had clung on tight, and she tried to not to think about how close she was or how wonderful her hair smelled. Pretty impressive for someone who’d been lying in the dirt with her for the past two hours, she tried to tell herself, as if that would make her heart race any less.

* * *

Thundery days where the summer storms swept across the isles were something that the fisherwomen told tales about. They spoke of omens, of imbalance, the four winds being fickle and the cold depths of the ocean on moonless nights. Islanders would write soothing messages on pieces of paper and tie them up on the branches above the shrine, while a sage lit a lantern that’d flicker the whole night long. They’d sleep soundly, having whispered their softest words into the ears of those furious spirits.

Ty Lee did not sleep soundly on thundery nights.

‘Hey,’ she said softly, nudging Suki's elbow. ‘Are you awake?’

‘Just about. Can’t sleep?’

She tried to smile. ‘Yeah. It’s… too stuffy.’

‘Want to get some water?’

She nodded. They moved softly from the halls out towards the kitchens, sliding the door shut quietly behind them. She poured out clay cups, and handed one to Ty Lee. She sipped a little, then slumped down against the wall. Suki slid down next to her, cradling her cup.

Muffled rain pattered behind them. Ty Lee pattered her fingers on her knees.

They didn’t speak for a while.

‘I try to think of other things. And I do, on the good days. But I always think of her when there’s a storm,’ she said.

She looked down. Held her fingers still.

‘I wonder if she’s okay.’

She leant her head on Suki’s shoulder.

Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled.

Their hands edged closer.

‘What can you touch, right now?’

‘The wooden beams, beneath my feet. They creak. And the wall behind me, and the shutters, which shake a bit. And your sleeve. It’s soft. Your shoulder, warm, comforting. Your hand, here, on mine.’

‘You’re safe here,’ Suki murmured softly into her hair. ‘You know that?’

‘I know.’

Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled.

They leaned on each other until the world stopped shaking.

* * *

They began, not to brush each other’s faces with paint, but to wash the remains of the day off it. Warm water, a gentle cloth. On the days where Ty Lee had held her fans high and had shown the world that she could lead, and Suki cupped her chin and smiled with pride (and love, too, she loved her). On the days, too, where Suki felt the weight on her shoulders, found it harder to rise above it, Ty Lee would take her face into her hands, and say, ‘let me.’ She’d move with slow, deliberate hands. Her forehead first. Then, her brows. Her cheeks, her nose, her lips. Her jaw. She took her time. She took the weight away. Light as the wind. And she saw all of her. Suki, as she wanted to be. Suki, as she was.

Suki, all of Suki, as she was and as she wanted to be, wanted to close the distance, the breaths between them.

‘Can I kiss you?’ Ty Lee asked her, as careful fingers and a cloth caressed her cheek.

Suki smiled. She leaned closer. 'Yeah. You can kiss me.’ 

She gave her a questioning, tentative kiss on the lips. She wanted more, was about to lean in more, to tangle her fingers in her hair, when Ty Lee suddenly pulled away.

‘Hm, can I do it again? I don’t think I did it right.’

Suki laughed, and cupped her cheek. ‘Yeah. Go on. Do it again.’

She kissed her, again. Slow, patient, soft. Suki wrapped her arms around her, holding her close. It was better that time.

* * *

They would brush each other, touch each other, not that far, never that distant, throughout the day. Reminders. Little nudges, squeezes of a hand, an arm wrapped around hers like she was some important lady, hugs and cuddles and shoulder leans and falling asleep and waking up wrapped around each other as the days grew longer and colder.

When the sun peaked up, before the others had stirred, before they’d dressed their faces and everything was dusted in orange-gold and dewdrops, they would sometimes kiss on the steps of the courtyard. Suki could see Kyoshi’s statue from there, which was always a sign of fortune, a sign of luck. Ty Lee claimed Kyoshi would wink at them whenever Suki wasn’t watching, spun her around and kissed her – _‘Look! I just saw her!’_ – and whenever Suki told her, ‘No way, that didn’t happen,’ Ty Lee would laugh and say, ‘Maybe you should try again.’

So they did. Again and again.

Suki was sitting on those steps with two cups of hot tea, gently steaming, as the sun began to break and the fisherwomen cast out their nets again. It was still (except the bracing wind, her bracing wind, coming back to her) when Ty Lee ran up to her, when Suki spun her into her arms, and peppered her with kisses.

‘Chiyo had a letter for me today,’ Ty Lee told her, still clinging on.

‘Oh?’

‘From… my family. They’re telling me to come home.’

Suki gently squeezed her hand. _I’m here. You’re safe here._

‘What will you tell them?’

‘That I’m already home.’

**Author's Note:**

> edit 25/9/20: reread this, tweaked some of the dialogue in the kiss scene. 
> 
> Tyouhank for reading <3 let me know what you think / what you enjoyed / your favourite lines etc. in the comments!
> 
> (forgive the [pink in the night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-B5yr2zyY0) reference)
> 
> [ATLA Tumblr](https://zuzuslastbraincell.tumblr.com/) | [ATLA Femslash Week 2020](https://atlafemslashweek.tumblr.com/)


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